In Dreams of Iron and Steel (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), Deborah Cadbury tells the stories of seven great works that cover over a century of engineering history. Originally published in Great Britain as Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, the book was a companion to a BBC television series. The projects covered vary widely from a sewer built under a metropolis to a bridge that towered above the skyline of its day.
The oldest of these (still standing like all but one of the other projects) is the Bell Rock lighthouse. The Bell Rock sank many ships that sought shelter from North Sea storms in Scotland’s Firth of Forth. Robert Stevenson, grandfather of author Robert Louis Stevenson, designed and oversaw the construction of a tower on it. The rock was a formidable construction site. It sat eleven miles from land. High tide covered it with as much as 16 feet of water. Low tide exposed an area only 250 by 130 feet. Yet Stevenson and his men built a 100-foot, stone tower on it. They did it 200 years ago.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, several wonders were built almost at once. The Great Eastern, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was twice the size of any other ship. Though a commercial failure, it set the standard for the next generation of ships.
Brunel launched his ship into a dirty and diseased Thames. Joseph Bazalgette sought to make the river safer for London residents. He built sewers under an ancient city that had grown to 2.5 million people and sprawled over 80 square miles.
In the American West, rival firms raced across the continent to build a railroad that would unite a nation recovering from civil war. In New York, John and Washington Roebling tackled the broad East River with their Brooklyn Bridge. They risked their lives and reputations on the longest span of the day and a material untested in bridges—steel.
The twentieth century inaugurated bigger feats. First proposed in 1879 by Vicomte Ferdinand de Lesseps of France, builder of the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal defeated most of those tried to build it. Even the United States poked at the mountains in futility until John Stevens, a railroad engineer, upgraded the infrastructure and equipment. When Stevens left the canal, a frustrated Theodore Roosevelt put military officers in charge. Lieutenant Colonel George Goethels, an engineer with extensive lock and dam experience, saw the canal through to its completion shortly before World War I.
The final project, America’s “damn big dam”, was build during the Depression. Hoover Dam was huge and constructed under difficult conditions. But construction engineer Frank “Hurry up” Crowe pushed and planned to get it done early and under budget.
Cadbury treats each project separately. However, they are linked by common elements.
Tragedy and setbacks touched each one. Thousands of men, usually poor laborers and sometimes children, were killed or injured to make these huge structures. They were beset by lack of financing, reluctance to try new methods and materials, bankrupt contractors, political opposition, corruption, greed, prejudice, and other human imperfections.
At their best, these engineers and their wonders are linked by the same qualities that appear in the best of engineering today. They had a vision to make people safer, healthier, richer, and freer. They created solutions to immense problems.
Robert Stevenson’s triumph at Bell Rock won the confidence of the Northern Lighthouse Board. It also launched an association between the Stevenson family and Scottish lighthouses that lasted four generations. During their tenures in the office of engineer for the board, Stevenson and his sons dominated the design, construction, and operation of the lights. Bella Bathurst tells their story in The Lighthouse Stevensons (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).
This book has its own kind of variety: technical, professional, and personal. It covers the construction and technology of several lighthouses, the masterpieces of Robert and his three sons. They not only built towers, but also improved their design and the design of the lamps, reflectors, optics, and mechanical systems that operated in them. One even studied the waves that assaulted their works.
It shows that engineering is more than simply design and construction. The Stevensons were also managers, fundraisers, businessmen, public servants, purchasing agents, manufacturers, contractors, and more. Their work included a broad section of what engineers do.
The book is also a biography of these four men that reveals the dynamics of the family. Robert insisted his sons join the family profession and business. Only one, David, seemed to take to it naturally. Only David’s sons filled the next generation of lighthouse Stevensons. Alan and Tom were more inclined to work in literature and the arts. Alan proved himself to be a capable engineer by building a 138-foot light at Skerryvore that could withstand the elements and exhibit a simple beauty. He became so disabled by disease, Bathurst suggests it was muscular sclerosis, that he gave up his work with the lighthouses. He managed to work irregularly as a writer. His works include and encyclopedia article on lighthouses and a translation of Greek poems. Tom shared Alan’s artistic leaning, but not his intensity and focus. He and David eventually divided the engineering work for the Northern Lights.
Not everyone is cut out to be an engineer, of course. As Robert Louis Stevenson said about his internship in the profession, “He is a wise youth, to be sure, who can balance one part of genuine life against two parts of drudgery between four walls and for the sake of one, manfully accept the other.” But some managed to catch what Marion Allen, a laborer on the Hoover Dam, called constructitis. “Sometimes one thinks he is cured,” said Allen, “only to have a relapse when he goes by fresh concrete or catches the smell of fresh sawdust from new lumber. Anyone with this affliction has to start construction of some kind, even of only to dig a hole and fill it up again.”
Order this book here.
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
150 Book Reviews Posted on Keenan’s Book Reviews
We’ve posted reviews of 150 books on this blog so far. The most recent 50 are listed below in alphabetical order by title.
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
8 Minutes in the Morning for Extra-Easy Weight Loss by Jorge Cruise
Acres of Diamonds by Russel H. Conwell
Attitude is Everything by Jeff Keller
The Beethoven Factor by Paul Pearsall
Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Changing for Good by James O. Prochaska et al
The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith
The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton
The Complete Verse and Other Nonsense by Edward Lear
Copernicus’ Secret by Jack Repcheck
The Dangerous Duty of Delight by John Piper
The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett
Descarte’s Secret Notebook by Amir D. Aczel
The Difference Maker by John C. Maxwell
The Elements of Technical Writing by Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly
The Emotional Energy Factor by Mira Kirshenbaum
Fathered by God by John Eldredge
Follow Your Heart by Andrew Matthews
Genesis
The Golden Age of DC Comics by Les Daniels et al
Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
The Hunter adapted by Darwyn Cook
Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast
The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Robbins Blair
The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson
Keeping a Journal You Love by Sheila Bender
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Language and the Pursuit of Happiness by Chalmers Brothers
The Man Who Loved Books too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett
Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed
Maus by Art Spiegelman
The Mindful Way through Depression by Mark Williams et al
The Numbers behind NUMB3RS by Keith Devlin & Gary Lorden
The Numbers Game by Michael Blastland & Andrew Dilnot
The Once and Future King by T. H. White
Peace of Mind through Possibility Thinking by Robert H. Schuller
The Private Investigator’s Handbook by Chuck Chambers
Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary
The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Steven K. Scott
The Secret of the Ages by Robert Collier
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
Triumvirate by Bruce Chadwick
Water by Marq de Villiers
The Way of the Wild Heart by John Eldredge
When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce
You Can Write a Column by Monica McCabe Cardoza
Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.
Additional or expanded reviews have been posted on these books:
The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Big Necessity by Rose George
Blink by Macolm Gladwell
The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont
The Emotional Energy Factory by Mira Kirshenbaum
Epic by John Eldredge
The Ghost Map by Stephen Johnson
God Wants You to be Rich by Paul Zane Pilzer
The Gospel of Luke
Gratitude by Melody Beattie
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis
How to Write Mysteries by Shannon OCork
The Joy of Supernatural Thinking by Bill Bright
Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed
No More Christian Nice Guy by Paul Coughlin (see comments)
The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS by Keith Devlin & Gary Lorden
One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer
The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization by Anthony Esolen
Proverbs
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper
The Spirit by Darwyn Cooke
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
The Unfinished Game by Keith Devlin
Walking with God by John Eldredge
The Water Room by Christopher Fowler
Why Good Things Happen to Good People by Stephen Post & Jill Neimark
Wisdom from the Batcave by Cory A. Friedman
Additional reviews:
First 25 Reviews
Reviews 26-50
Reviews 51-75
Reviews 76-100
Sunday, September 20, 2015
The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons
Novelist Henry James
seems like an unlikely partner to fictional detective
Sherlock
Holmes. Dan
Simmons pairs them in his novel The
Fifth Heart. James provides Holmes with access to the inner circle of
American politics,
where Holmes investigates the death of Clover Adams,
wife of historian
Henry Adams.
Together, they thwart an attempt to assassinate President Grover
Cleveland at the opening of the Chicago
Columbian Exhibition.
In some ways, Simmons draws from the weakest of genre writing, such as
the fortunate happenstance of James and Holmes meeting on the bank of the Seine, where the
story begins. Simmons writing in this style is not weak, though. He also writes
in more literary
style, though not a densely written as James’ novels, and uses the likes of
upper-class dinner parties to explore social customs and mores.
One of the ways Simmons creates a deep sense of the setting is by
constantly dropping names. Many of the characters in the book, or their real
counterparts, were famous or well-connected in their day and actually knew each
other, such as Adams, the Hays, James, and Samuel
Clemens. They also knew, or knew about, a lot of other famous or
well-connected people, so the discussion of all these names seems natural. I
started jotting down the names, and I recorded more than 100 (some are listed
below). Some were fictional (like Hercule
Poirot), but many were real people.
On the whole, the novel is a good adventure
full of interesting characters. Simmons goes a little deep into philosophy in a
consideration of what it means to be a real person, or the potential reality of
fictional people (Holmes suspects he may be fictional). The book can be enjoyed
without sweating that point.
In a sense, all the characters in the book are fictional, even if they
are based on real people. The Holmes of this novel describes the symptoms that
indicate he may be fiction, such as the fog he experiences between adventures,
and the James of this novel experiences the same thing. Of course, many of us
experience arriving home from work and having almost no recollection of
driving, so some fogginess may be a natural part of memories and the
way we form them (or don’t form them).
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
Irene Adler [fictional]
Mycroft
Holmes [fictional character]
Sherlock
Holmes [fictional character]
Sebastian Moran
[fictional character]
James Nolan
Moriarty [fictional character]
Hercule
Poirot [fictional character]
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Best of What I Read in 2007
I read 46 books in 2007. This is not to brag. My reading is not a scholarly endeavor, it is more like a hobby. It is comparable to stamp collecting or knitting, though a philatelist or knitter might have more to show for the hours and effort.For the more discriminating reader, I’ll apply the Pareto Principle to my list of 2007 reads and give you what I think are the top nine.
1. Proverbs (The Bible)
2. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
3. The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Steven K. Scott
4. The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
5. The Relaxation Response by Herbert Bensen with Mariam Z. Klipper
6. The Way of the Wild Heart by John Eldredge
7. The Beethoven Factor by Paul Pearsall
8. The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton
9. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
1. Proverbs (The Bible)
2. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
3. The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Steven K. Scott
4. The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
5. The Relaxation Response by Herbert Bensen with Mariam Z. Klipper
6. The Way of the Wild Heart by John Eldredge
7. The Beethoven Factor by Paul Pearsall
8. The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton
9. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
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